Engaging Scripture

How to encourage one another – Colossians 4:7-18, Part 1

Editor’s Note: This week I welcome David Hundert on the blog. David is an MDiv student and member of Faith Church. He preaches for me 3-4 times each year when I am away, and this past week I was my denomination’s national conference. Thank you, David!

There is a story of a young man who went away to summer camp. While he was gone, he wrote to his dad, telling about all of the things that were going on and describing all of the drama taking place. At the very end of the letter he added, “No mon, no fun, your son.” His dad replied back with a very simple letter telling his son about all of the things he could be taking advantage of while he was there. The dad signed his letter, “Too bad, sooooo sad, your dad!”

I thought about that story as I wrestled with how to write a sermon about Colossians 4:7-18, Paul’s “PS” at the end of the letter. What I was really struggling with is this, “What is the overall theme to the end of this letter?” As I read and reread the passage, it finally sunk in. The passage is about relationship. How should we be relating to one another? In this particular case, Paul’s description of relationship within the body of Christ didn’t come in the form of instruction or explanation. Instead, Paul gives us a practical description of how the body of Christ should be and could be relating to one another.

In today’s society, Twitter limits the amount of characters that you can use to 280 which doubled from its initial count of 140. You’re limited to getting your point across to the Twitter-verse to 280 characters. When I was on social media, jokingly I competed with my kids to see who can get more “friends.” By the time I cancelled my Facebook account, I had somewhere around 1400! Now in all seriousness, if I would have died back then, I would have been fortunate if my own kids would have showed up for my funeral, let alone 1400 “friends!” However, the point is that we are built to communicate. We are designed to be social and to socialize. In his book, The DNA of Relationships, counselor Gary Smalley argues from countless hours of research and observation alongside the wisdom of the Bible that we are hardwired for relationship. This is one of the three main points of the book, relationship DNA. He shares an anecdote to describe this reality:

“The other day, I received a letter from a young man who had gotten back together with his girlfriend after a difficult conflict and a terrible fight. Eric had been working through some things at our counseling center, and it apparently had helped him and his girlfriend, and they got back together. Eric’s closing sentence was, “Sometimes I feel that I can’t live with her, and yet I know I can’t live without her.” How often do we hear that said?”

Well, there’s a reason for that. It’s in our DNA: We are made to need relationships. Even when they are hard, difficult, or just plain frustrating, we need relationships. It’s the way we are wired. We have a longing to belong to someone, to be wanted and cherished for the valued people we are.

Dr. Allan Schore of the UCLA Medical School has found that our basic genetic structure within the brain is hardwired to form emotionally based connected relationships right from birth. Relationships are not optional. From the moment we’re born, we’re in relationship with parents, siblings, and other relatives. Soon we’re in relationship with other children. Later we have relationships at school and in the workplace, and we develop relationships with close friends. Eventually, most people develop a relationship with someone they deeply love. When a relationship becomes difficult or painful, we tend to dismiss the relationship and may for a while try to abandon all relationships. But inevitably we come back and seek connection again.

Susan Pinker, the social science columnist for the Wall Street Journal, gave a TED talk in 2017 titled, “The Secret to Living Longer May Be Your Social Life.” In her research she discovered that the Italian island of Sardinia had ten times as many centenarians as North America. Why? It wasn’t the olive oil. It wasn’t the sunny climate. It wasn’t the gluten-free diet or personality types. It was the quality of close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions. She concluded her talk this way:

“Building in-person interaction into our cities, into our workplaces, into our agendas . . . sends feel-good hormones surging through the bloodstream and brain and helps us live longer. I call this building your village, and building it and sustaining it is a matter of life and death. It’s good for your health, it turns out, to be in rich communal relations with others.”

So, you might be asking yourselves, what does that have to do with Colossians? Here we are, centuries later, reading the Post Script that Paul himself adds to a letter, which gives us a glimpse into what life should look like within the body of Christ. If you were a part of this “upstart religion” in those days, there would have been a lot of isolation and ridicule, possibly even bigoted bias. So what Paul is doing here is sharing what was going on where he was, and sending others to gather information to report back to him.

We get a glimpse of this in Colossians 4, verses 7-9, where we read that Tychicus and Onesimus were sent to share what was going on with Paul and to encourage. This reminds me of when we have missionary guest speakers in worship services. When they are on home assignment, they share with us all of the great things that are taking place where they serve. It blesses and encourages me to hear all that God is doing there. Or when missionaries Skype with us, and share stories about the headway they’re making, networking with the churches in their country. It’s exciting! We recently learned about a young lady in Kijabe, Kenya, named Beatrice, who is trying to lift herself and her family out of poverty by getting her excavating license and starting a business. There is so much that we can share and learn to encourage one another.

Doesn’t this lift you up? What does this tell us about encouraging others? How can we encourage others? I think that the “prayer partner” ministry started by Faith Church’s Fellowship Serve Team is an awesome step in that direction. I’d like to add to that this question, “What can we do to encourage those that haven’t participated in the church family in a while?” Could you drop them a card in the mail? Could you make a phone call? Maybe send an email? You can let them know that they are not forgotten and that they are missed. Let them know, that if they aren’t here because they are struggling with something, maybe there is a way that you can be there for them. Maybe you can pray with them. If you can, don’t just tell them that you’ll pray for them. Do it! Right then and there. If you have them on the phone, pray with them. If you’re emailing, type out your prayer and send it. We all know that we have the best intentions to pray when we say, “I’ll pray for you,” but there’s an old expression that says, “The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions.” Don’t put it off… Pray then and there!

How to speak graciously [even when you don’t want to] – Colossians 4:2-6, Part 5

*Photo by Bewakoof.com Official on Unsplash*

I recently heard a story from a Mennonite pastor in my local ministerium. Nearly 25 years ago, his wife tragically passed away. One year before she passed away, she made the decision to discontinue wearing the traditional Mennonite head covering for women. After she died, he got lots of support, but he also got two letters from people in his church saying that if she had still worn a head covering, she’d be alive today. He said that hurt him so deeply. Can you imagine what it would take to write that kind of letter? What must be going on inside a person’s heart and mind to have the gall to write that to a person who just lost their wife?

In Colossians 4 verse 6, Paul writes that our conversation, our speech, our words, should be gracious. Even when we disagree with one another, even when we are hurting, we can be gracious. This is the self-control of the tongue, and that is hard for some of us. But know this, we can become gracious. In fact, I think it is best to read Paul’s words here as saying to us that it is imperative that we learn to be gracious, and then actually practice being gracious.

For some of you, gracious talk is the most natural thing in the world. You flow with graciousness. For others of you, being gracious can be difficult. There are extremes both ways. First, for those of you who are naturally gracious, the extreme you need to watch out for is being so gracious that you do not speak the truth. I can struggle with this. When I am in front of my congregation preaching, I don’t struggle so much. I find it much easier to speak truthfully and plainly in a sermon because I don’t see myself as speaking to any one person. I’m speaking to the whole church family. But when I’m speaking to just one person in my office or at a coffee shop, I can hem and haw and cave in to my fears and not speak plainly because I don’t want to offend. That is the shadow side of being gracious. I need, and maybe you need, to learn to speak the truth, even when one on one, and of course, to still speak it graciously.

But maybe you are the other extreme. Maybe you have a hard time being gracious. Maybe you use harsh tones, bold declarations, or even manipulation or intimidation. Maybe you don’t think enough about the feelings of the person you’re talking to. Do you need to work on speaking the truth in love? With graciousness? Do you need to learn to pause before you speak, to make sure it comes out of your mouth with a gracious tone?

Paul also suggests that our speaking of the Good News needs to be seasoned with salt. My family loves Red Robin seasoning. We almost always have that on our table. It takes so good! Not just on fries, but on burgers, on pretty much any meat, on mac and cheese. It is a salt-based seasoning. Maybe you have a seasoning you prefer. Maybe just plain salt! When we season our conversation with salt, we are flavoring the conversation in such a way that we clearly and compelling share the words of the Good News. Matched with a life that consistently aligns with the teachings of Jesus, this is a powerful combination.

You don’t have to be the poet laureate or a preacher or a Martin Luther King Jr to have conversation that could be described as seasoned with salt. Start seasoning your conversation with grace, just like Paul said. Then focusing on telling the story. Talk about how Jesus has impacted your life. And if the person you’re talking to asks a question you don’t know the answer to, say “I don’t know, but I’ll look into it and get back to you,” and then actually look into it and get back to them. If they respond with a point of view that you don’t know how to respond to, then be honest and say “I don’t know how to respond to that, but I’ll think about it or research it and get back to you.” What is absolutely important is to avoid argumentation. We should avoid viewing conversations about Jesus as battles to win. Instead focus on telling stories. Talk about the ways that your church family is seeking to share the love of Christ in the community. In my community, I loving talking about how our ministerium of churches work together in unity, despite their denominational or doctrinal differences.

Invite conversation where you listen and learn. The person, after the conversation is over, should be able to say of you, “They really listened to me…they were really interested in me.”

Prayer and sharing the Gospel through word and deed. Those are two excellent ways to measure a church.

What to pray for yourself and others – Colossians 4:2-6, Part 4

Think about the content of your prayer requests. Often the prayer requests in my church family are health-related. There’s nothing wrong with asking God to heal us. But I do get concerned when it seems we have a fixation on health. While it is okay to pray for health-related concerns, that should not be our focus. Take a look at Colossians 4, verse 3 where Paul writes what prayer request content he focuses on.

Paul asks the Colossians to pray for “us,” meaning that he is thinking not just about himself, but he is asking for prayer for his ministry associates as well. We should be people who pray for one another. For our families, for our friends, and for our church family. Pray for one another.

Then notice that Paul asks the Colossians to pray that he and his ministry associates have opportunities to speak. Paul is thinking of speaking ministry. When we hear that, we think of going from church to church, or place to place, giving lectures. I think of an evangelist, maybe preaching in the open air or at a rally. Of course those people need our prayers, but we shouldn’t limit our prayers to people who have a role as a professional evangelist. Paul is more than likely asking the Colossians to pray that he will have as many opportunities as possible to talk with people about Jesus. Doesn’t have to be a crowd. Could be one person. This is a major prayer request for Paul, as evidenced by the fact that he mentions this same prayer request in other letters. Paul was passionate about talking with people about Jesus. That is a request that we should pray for one another as well, that we and they would have opportunities to speak about Jesus with others.

How often do you talk about Jesus with people in your life? Not much? If not, then start by making this a prayer request and asking people, like Paul does here, to pray for you, that you would have opportunities to talk more about Jesus.

As I read this request from Paul, I thought Paul was constantly bold, having no problem whatsoever speaking about Jesus all the time, wherever he went. When you read the book of Acts and his letters, it sure seems like he is the last guy that needs people to pray for him to have opportunities to talk about Jesus. And yet here he is asking for that prayer. It shows his humility, his dependence on God. Perhaps we could say, how much more do we need to be praying for this for ourselves, and having others pray for us.

Paul calls the content that he wants to speak about, “the mystery of Christ.” He mentioned this previously in chapters 1 and 2 of Colossians (starting here), so I’m not going to take time to review it. Simply put, he is talking about the good news of Jesus, that there is salvation and hope and new life found in Christ.

It could be that Paul asks for more open doors to talk about Jesus because of what he says in verse 3 about his current situation. He is in chains, bound in prison, and thus he does not have the opportunity to talk with people about Jesus like he would if he was a free man. So it is possible that part of what Paul is doing here is simply asking them to pray that he would be freed from jail. But as we know from what Paul writes, especially in Philippians 1, even when he is in jail, he shares the Gospel to people there.

I think it is entirely possible that God gives us opportunity to talk about Jesus more frequently than we care to admit. Nearly everywhere we are, there is likely opportunity. Perhaps if we pray for opportunities, what God will do to answer the prayer is to open our eyes to the opportunities right in front of us. Or perhaps he will embolden us to speak. Most of us are surrounded with lots of opportunities to share new life in Christ with others, but we choose instead not to talk about the story of Jesus. How about you?

Look at verse 4 and Paul also asks for prayer that he will speak the message of the Gospel clearly.

As we well know, actions speak louder than words. Or as was famously said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” What that means is that our lives preach the Gospel far more clearly and powerfully than our words. You actually do communicate content, information, and you communicate it more impactfully, by your deeds.

For too long there has been a disagreement in Christian circles about sharing the information of the Gospel and doing the deeds of the Gospel, as if one was better than the other. Both are important. Jesus was involved in sharing the Good News both through good deeds and good words. We follow his example when we are involved in sharing the love of God through both word and deed. We work toward balancing word and deed, not over-emphasizing one or the other. This is how we speak clearly, by life choices that are in line with our words.

Researchers have been telling us that people are not interested in becoming followers of Jesus because the people in the church, those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, live so different from the way Jesus lived.

Russell Moore recently wrote this: “In the early 1920s [a person] was likely to have walked away [from church] due to the fact that she found [church doctrines] to be outdated and superstitious or because he found moral [freedom] to be more attractive than the “outmoded” strict moral code of his past or because she wanted to escape the stifling bonds of a home church for an autonomous individualism. Now we see a markedly different—and jarring—model of a disillusioned evangelical. We now see young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”

He goes on to say this: “The problem now is not that people think the church’s way of life is too demanding, too morally rigorous, but that they have come to think the church doesn’t believe its own moral teachings.

“What happens when people reject the church because they think we reject Jesus and the gospel? …What if people don’t leave the church because they disapprove of Jesus, but because they’ve read the Bible and have come to the conclusion that the church itself would disapprove of Jesus? That’s a crisis.”

In other words, the clearest way that we can share the Gospel is to live like Jesus lived. That is what Paul is referring to in verse 5, when he says, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.” Or it could also be translated, “walk in wisdom.” Paul is talking about the choices of our lives, about what flows out of our hearts and minds and into the world. Go back to Colossians chapter 3 and review the two sets of clothing. Take off the old clothes of the sinful nature, and put on the clothing of the new life of Jesus. Our pattern of life matters more than the words we say. And people, especially the younger generations, are watching Christians’ pattern of life, that it does not look like Jesus, concluding they want nothing to do with us.

What should we do about this? We should live like Jesus lived.

The transforming power of gratitude – Colossians 4:2-6, Part 3

*Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash*

Do you ever feel like, as a parent, you are running your own private family Uber? The kids call or text, and you pick them up from practice. You drive them to events, to their friends’ houses, and all over. Or did you ever get a call like this: “Dad, practice finished early, so can you pick me up, and can you also drive ____ (friend #1) and ____ (friend #2) to their homes?” I don’t say this out loud in response to my kid, and maybe I should, but I’m thinking, “Why don’t those kids call their parents?” Probably because their parents are at work, and can’t leave, whereas I have a flexible schedule. So I tend to be the go-to driver. Last summer I drove my daughter and three of her friends for a day trip to the beach two and a half hours away. If I’m honest, the parental Uber can get to be a drag in my selfish moments, and I can long for the day when my kids get their driver’s licenses. But there is one thing that can transform my attitude about all the chauffeuring. You know what it is?

Gratitude. When my kids and their friends say “thank you” for the lift. One of my daughter’s friends says “thank you” when she gets in the car at the beginning of the ride, and when she gets out at the end of the ride. That’s meaningful, and it makes it hard for me to be grumpy.

As we continue our study through Colossians 4:2-6, looking at two marks of a healthy church family, we’ve been focusing on the first, the practice of prayer. Next in verse 2, Paul says we should practice thankful prayer. That means taking time to thank God for who he is, for what he has done, for his promises, for answered prayer. Thankfulness is transformative. It helps us remember, especially when we are in difficult times, that there is more to the story. The difficulty, the pain is not the end of the story. When we spend time actually saying or writing words of thankfulness, our hearts and minds are changed, realizing the truth about the world, that God is love, that God is good, that he cares for us.

I would encourage you to add a practice of thanksgiving in your prayer. Thank God for meals, for the day, but beyond that maybe keep a journal where each day you write five things you are thankful for. Nothing is too mundane to be thankful for. If you love to start your day with coffee, thank God for creating coffee plants. Thank him for the farmers who grow the plants. Thank him for the person who roasted your beans. I sometimes go to bed thinking about how wonderful it will be, when I wake up the next morning, that I get to drink coffee. Thank God for that. Then allow our gratefulness to go even deeper. Go on a thought path of gratefulness. Think about it: Who first discovered you could roast and grind coffee beans, then pour hot water over them, and you get a delicious drink with caffeine? Thank God for them! What else can you thank God for? There is so much we can be thankful for, including difficult times, because of how beneficial they often are to us.

When we are thankful, God helps us reset our lives on what is true, what is good, what is right, and that shapes us.

How to hear from God (aka Practicing Watchful Prayer) – Colossians 4:2-6, Part 2

I once had a friend who talked a lot. I don’t know if it was because the person looked at me as a pastor, and thus assumed, wrongly, that it was my job to just listen to them express their struggles all the time. We would meet, sometimes for an hour or an hour and a half, and they would talk almost nonstop, hardly coming up for air, rarely asking me how I was doing. Or if they did ask me how I was doing, I would get in a few sentences or a few minutes, and they would jump right back into talking about what they were thinking and feeling. It was really…frustrating. I felt used.

I wonder if God ever feels used.

This week in our study through Colossians, we are looking two marks of a healthy church, based on what Paul teaches in Colossians 4:2-6. In the previous post, we learned that the first mark of a healthy church is to be devoted to prayer. In that post we looked at a few ways to practice prayer, especially through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer. But there are still more ways to pray. Look at the next phrase in verse 2, “Being watchful.”

What is watchful prayer? To watch is to observe, to listen. Too often we think of prayer as us doing the talking, primarily to make requests of God, and God is doing the listening. But that is a warped view of a relationship, right? How would your feel in your relationships, if the other person did all the talking, and you just listened?

Is that what we do to God? Have you ever asked God how he is doing? And then stopped and listened? If we are in a real relationship with God, and we are, shouldn’t we ask him how he is doing and then actually give space and time to listen?

I have shared this before, but I’ll share it again because I think it is so helpful. My seminary Old Testament professor, David Dorsey, who has since passed away, once told us in class that in his conversations with people, he sought to practice a 60/40 rule in conversation. He would strive to actively listen to the other person 60% of the time, and share his thoughts 40% of the time. You might think, “Why not 50-50? Shouldn’t a relationship be equal?” Here’s why: as followers of Jesus we are called to die to ourselves, to consider others as more important than ourselves, so the 60/40 rule emphasizes listening to the other, leaving more space for the other person to share, but also honors the fact that any good relationship is a two-way street. Thus Dr. Dorsey felt he should share his thoughts about 40 percent of the time.

Of course, it is impossible to track these percentages in real time, unless we could configure our phones to record word count or time speaking, and alert us somehow. Frankly, that is likely possible, but I don’t think we’d want to do that. Instead, we should be aware of how much we are talking in a conversation. We should be actively inquiring about the other person, how they are doing, how they are feeling. Active listening means asking questions of them, rather than being ready to share about our thoughts. But there is also the 40% side, our side, and therefore it is not right if we, in a desire for humility, allow the other person to always dominate the conversation. Frankly, I should have not allowed that friend to talk that much. I should have confronted him. My lack of confrontation meant that I was discipling him into thinking that it is okay that he talked 95% of the time or more. It’s not okay.

And yet, how often do we do that with God? It is not okay. We need to be people who listen, and if we use the 60/40 rule as a guide, and I think it is a wise guide, we will listen to God 60% of the time! Think about how different 60% listening is from our normal practice of prayer. Evaluate your practice of prayer. How much time do you listen to God? Is it anywhere close to 60%? Given that God is the ultimate selfless One, it seems reasonable that he would be the one to listen more than he talks. So flip the percentages, and make it your goal to listen to God 40% of the time. Even then, do you come anywhere close to listening to God 40% of the time?

What I have heard from people over the years, and the question I ask myself, when it comes to listening prayer is this: “What am I supposed to hear, or what if I don’t hear anything?”

I have a couple thoughts about that. We can hear God in many ways. Primarily, we hear him through the words of Scripture, so we should make studying Scripture a priority. I have been using a Daily Office podcast lately, Common Prayer Daily, which I have found so helpful. Every day it is about 15 minutes, and I try to start the day listening to it, before everyone in my family wakes up. Each podcast includes scripture reading and guided prayer. That helps me listen to the voice of God in Scripture.

We can also hear God through nature, or through other people. I hope you hear God in sermons, in songs, and in the fellowship of the church family, such as through group discussions.

We can also hear directly from God. I also listen to The Daily Disconnect podcast. It is about 7 minutes that includes some brief devotional reflections, and then a space of 3-4 minutes of quietness, in which you listen for God to speak. Sometimes I use a prayer app that allows you to set a timer for silent prayer. 10 minutes, 12 minutes, however long you want to listen for the voice of God. This helps me practice what Paul calls being watchful.

What am I listening for? Could be thoughts. Could be memories. Could be reflections on Scripture. Dallas Willard, in his book Hearing God, says that it can take time and practice to recognize the voice of the Spirit. And when we think we hear it, we should always test it to see if it in line with Scripture.

What I think is most important to remember is this: practice watchful prayer. We will not hear the voice of the Lord if we do not listen. I encourage you to begin adding a time for listening to your daily prayer. Read a book like Hearing God to learn more about how to listen. Perhaps use a podcast like The Daily Disconnect.

Two Marks of a Healthy Church – Colossians 4:2-6, Part 1

What is a healthy church? What is a dead church? What is a failing church? How do we measure the success of a church?

As we continue our series studying the New Testament letter, Colossians, Paul shares two practices that mark a healthy church. Turn to Colossians 4:2. We are reading verses 2-6. Pause this post and read those verses, looking for the two marks of a healthy church.

Notice that Paul begins this section by teaching the first mark of a healthy church: we disciples of Jesus should be devoted to prayer.

What does it mean to be devoted to prayer? Just spend time praying, right? Pretty simple. But how much time? And what format should we use? Just pray before meals and pray before bed? Growing up my family used to pray before long trips in the car. Of course we pray in church. But what else? When do you normally pray? When a situation in life is going very badly, like a health problem, or a financial problem, and a relationship difficulty. Then we pray. We’re desperate and we have come to the end of ourselves, and we want help. So we cry out to God. As we should!

I took a prayer class in college and we learned that we should pray reverently. One way to help us pray reverently is to begin our prayer with an intentional attitude and posture of reverence to God. Think about Jesus started the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” There is a reverence, a respect there. In my mind, when I pray that line in the Lord’s prayer, I have the image of a follower of God entering his royal throne room, slowly, cautiously, wide-eyed, not wanting to be disrespectful. That image might be helpful to you.

In that college prayer class one student was from the former Soviet Union. After the prof taught us about respectfully entering God’s presence, this Russian student raised his hand and said, “That’s not always true.” Kind of bold to disagree with the prof! Was the student saying it was okay to be irreverent? Of course not. The student went on to tell us that in the former Soviet Union, the Christians had to be secretive, part of underground churches, as it was illegal to practice Christianity under that communist government. Government agents would spy on the Christians, trying to infiltrate them and throw them in jail. Sometimes government agents would find out where the Christians were worshiping in secret, and the agents would raid the house. My friend said that the Christians didn’t have time to enter God’s presence with slow, cautious reverence. They would just immediately cry out to God, “Help, Lord, help! Save us!”

It is okay to cry out to God in our desperation. That is what the Psalms of Lament are all about. That is what the book of Lamentations is all about. Lament is a form of prayer is which we cry out to God in our desperation, even with our complaint to God. Do you think God, when he hears us lament, thinks, “Oh geesh, here go these ungrateful people again. They are such bores, constantly complaining to me.”? No! God wants to hear our hearts. Even if our hearts are raw. This is why I include one psalm of lament in every Wednesday prayer guide for Faith Church. Because life is brutal sometimes, we need to know that it is okay to be honest about and express our pain to God, and to each other!

In addition to lament, there are other ways to pray. Many other ways. The Lord’s Prayer is a great model because it includes four forms of prayer, and they rhyme. Address – That is the beginning that we already talked about, where we consider who God is. We respectfully address “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.” Request – “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.” Confess – “Forgive us sins, as we forgive those who sinned against us.” Assess – “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” These are requests as well, but embedded in the request is an assessment of ourselves. When we pray for God’s help in temptation and deliverance, we are assessing ourselves, and the assessment is that “we cannot do this on our own, we need help.”

Address, Request, Confess, Assess.

But there are still more ways to pray. Check back to the next post, and we’ll learn more.

A new scorecard for the church – Colossians 4:2-6, Preview

How do you measure the health of a church family? I’m not talking about medical health. I’m talking about our discipleship to Jesus. When it comes to our belief about and practice of discipleship to Jesus, are we healthy? I know Faith Church isn’t perfect. No church is perfect. Because of that we don’t want to assume that we are doing just fine. Instead we should strive to maintain a humble, teachable posture, welcoming evaluation of ourselves. As difficult as it can be to learn that we have a problem, we need to know if we have unhealthy discipleship in our church family. We do not want to shrug off potential issues as if they are no big deal. So again I ask, how do you measure the discipleship health of a church family?

Our Faith Church Vision Team is reading Reggie McNeal’s book Missional Renaissance, in which he argues that churches need to start using a new scorecard. For too long, McNeal says, churches have been focused on the metrics of “bigger is better.” In other words, if a church family is gaining more worship attenders who give more money so they can build ever larger buildings, that church was considered to be healthy. Another metric has been applied to smaller churches, and that is their ability to keep offering worship services week in and week out. If they are continuing to pay their bills and hold worship services, they were considered to be healthy. Whether big or small, worship attendance, buildings and budgets rarely give us an accurate diagnosis of discipleship health. So what measurements do give us a picture of our health as disciples of Jesus?

As we continue our sermon series through Colossians, Paul has written quite a bit about what a healthy church looks like. In chapter three he said that a healthy church focuses on things above, by removing the dirty clothes of the sinful nature, and putting on the clean clothes of new life in Christ. In the next section, he will teach us two practices that healthy church families make a consistent, intentional part of their lives, as they seek to be disciples of Jesus who put on those new clothes, focusing on things above. Check out Colossians 4:2-6 ahead of time, then I look forward to discussing it further with you on the blog next week.

How to live your retirement years “as unto the Lord” – Colossians 3:22-4:1, Part 5

Christian…how are you thinking about your retirement years? The principle we’ve been studying this week, “work unto the Lord,” holds for retirement, even though in retirement you are no longer working a job. This principle can guide you as you retire if you answer the question: What is a distinctly Christian view of retirement? How does God want you to retire? What choices does God want you to make with your time and finances and relationships during retirement? As we have seen in Colossians 3:22-4:1, starting here, Paul tells us, “whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord.”

This is tricky because our American culture tells us something very different than “retire as unto the Lord.” Many, many Christians have bought into the American cultural idea of retirement, and as a result their practice of retirement is not in line with “whatever you do, do it unto the Lord.” Let me explain.

So often in our culture, we are trained to look to the next thing. Just get through it. If you are school, you are studying toward what is next. Elementary school prepares you for middle school. Middle school prepares you for high school. High school prepares you for a career or for college. College prepares you for a career or for grad school, which also leads to your career. It can seem that a long-term career is the end of the road, the destination that you have spent all these years of education preparing for. But when you are in that career, you quickly learn that is not the end of the road. Each day you are working for quitting time. Each week you are working for the weekend. Or you are working for vacation. Eventually the years go by, and more and more you are working for retirement. It can seem, then, that retirement is the destination. Why? Because finally, you will be able to fully rest, to fully enjoy the fruit of your labor.

I recently heard about a guy who did quite well in business, ran a factory here in Lancaster County, and at age 55 sold it, made a bundle of money and retired. Now he spends his time hunting and fishing, all over the world. Is that what it means to “work as unto the Lord?” I can’t answer for that guy because I don’t know him or the totality of his life. But it seems to me that many American Christians might look on that kind of life as what we desire. To retire and enjoy life, after decades of toil.

No doubt, God is a God of rest and sabbath. But God’s vision of rest is quite different from the so-called American Dream. As members and participants and children of the King, no matter what we do, we do it unto the Lord. That goes for retirement too. Our view of retirement, and how we live the retired life, then, as Christians, is transformed. We give our retirement, as we do with anything else in life, over to the Lord and the mission of his Kingdom. We ask the question, “How, Lord, do you want me to use this additional time and space I now have?” We devote ourselves and our time and our finances to the Lord. We place it at his feet and we say, “Take it all and use it for the mission of your Kingdom.” We look for what would bring him joy and what would glorify him and Kingdom ways.

So rather than studying and working for the weekend, for vacations, or for retirement, thinking that is “me” time, when we have a Kingdom viewpoint, we are studying and working for the Lord. Amazingly, what we will find when we “work as unto the Lord,” no matter what stage of life we are in, it is the most joyful and most fulfilling way of life. It is, in a surprising way, the ultimate “me” time. How so? When our heart and mind is set on doing things in a way that brings joy to our Father’s heart, our heart is also brought along to joy. When love and joy are the motivation for what we do it’s infectious.

Michelle often comes back from work with stories of how one person at the café who she’s serving will quietly tell her that they want to pay for another table, keeping their gift anonymous. Think about how this act of selfless generosity bring infectious joy. Certainly the party receiving the surprise of a free meal is joyful. But also the gift brings joy to the server who is taking care of both parties, and the anonymous giver received joy watching it all happen. Doing things, all things, as unto the Lord changes our viewpoint on tasks, because we are infusing joy into what was formerly just menial. The actual task is the same, but our hearts change.

Back to the concept of “me” time and retirement. I am not saying that we should never have time alone, or go on vacation, or throw a party. What Paul is saying is that we use our time and money and ability in such a way that makes it very clear that we are devoting to the Lord. We allow the Lord, and the mission of Kingdom, to define how we will use our time, money and ability, rather than the culture around us defining that. How we are choosing what we do is important.

What I have noticed, as a particularly troubling trend among Christians, especially when we retire, is a thirst for luxury. This is not the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Don’t let yourself off the hook if you think you are unable to experience luxury. Those with less means can still deeply thirst for luxury, and often, at least in America, still experience luxury, though perhaps is much smaller doses and frequencies than the wealthy. What do I mean by luxury? Luxury is any experience or possession that mostly unnecessary, self-indulgent and counter to a life that is defined by “do it all in the name of Jesus.” In other words, we Christians are not to view studying and working so that we can experience luxury. Yes, our culture has bountiful opportunity for us to experience luxury, telling us that we should strive for it, study for it, work for it, so that in retirement we can indulge it.

So how about you, how are you approaching your work, your studies, your retirement? Are you living as unto the Lord? What is the “why” behind what you are doing? How is your heart? Wrestle with it a bit this week. Ask God to search your heart and ask him to help you know and understand better the joy that is found in living as unto the Lord.

4 ways to have a Kingdom mindset about work – Colossians 3:22-4:1

What will help both students and teachers, workers and bosses, retirees, volunteers and leaders to “work as unto the Lord,” is to have a Kingdom mindset about work.

There are at least four ways to view your time at work, and this goes for the students at school, as well as for the retired persons for your involvement in volunteering, etc. I am thankful for author David Miller’s book Faith at Work for these four ways to have a Kingdom mindset about work: Ethics, Expression, Experience, Enrichment. You can learn more here. Let me summarize each of them.

Ethics is doing the right thing. Not cheating, not lying, not stealing, etc. Carrying yourself with integrity. When the boss asks you to lie to a client, you do not lie to a client. Expression is how you share your faith. We could use another “E” word, evangelism, for this. Seeking to faithfully share the good news of Jesus in your context. Experience involves questions of vocation, calling, meaning, and purpose. Its two sub-orientations are Outcome (work as means, purpose/meaning) and Process/Activity (work as end, calling). Finally enrichment focuses on practices such as healing, prayer, whether individually or as a group, such as having a Bible study with your co-workers.

It seems to me that Paul is primarily thinking of Ethics when he says “work as unto the Lord.” As we saw in the previous post, don’t just work hard when the boss is watching. Work hard all the time, because God is always watching. And when we say, “God is watching,” Paul is not trying to say that God has his microscope on you watching your every move, ready to dock you if you screw up. He’s watching us because he loves us. He gave us gifts, talents, breath for a new day and he loves to watch us use those gifts. It brings him joy to see us use the things he’s given us. It is a joy for my wife, Michelle, and I to see our kids taking different gifts and abilities that they’ve been given and using them. As a side note, kids, this is for you too, very similarly to what Paul wrote last week, “Children obey your parents,” so that when you do your chores, your work at home, you are doing it joyfully unto the Lord, without complaining, without argument. Consider the joy that this gives God. Kids, look at God as your parent who loves you and whom you want to worship as you work on chores and on school work.

So if parents love watching their kids, how much more does God love watching those he created and adores work as unto the Lord? Paul’s motivation here is much more positive, work heartily unto the Lord. You get to work those 40-50 hours/week because that is 40-50 hours serving the Lord, no matter what the actual job/task is that you are doing. How is your heart posture as you do that work/task? Think about as 40-50 hours/week of worship, of ministry.

Another angle to this is an approach called Business as Mission, where a person or an entire business is missional. This would be in the Experience category of the four Es. This is what my wife, Michelle, and her business partner envisioned for their company Imagine Goods. A for-profit company that empowered workers through employment. The company has since closed down after an amazing 12 year run. But the business itself was missional. What about you and your work, whether that is school work or your place of employment? Is there a Kingdom mission even if yours is a for-profit business? Is there a Kingdom mission in how you are choosing to spend volunteer time? Is there a Kingdom mission in the way you interact in sports, for those of you who are students, or hobbies?

Working as unto the Lord is seeing yourself as a mission worker and thinking theologically about your work. To do this, to work unto the Lord as Paul suggests, we must avoid compartmentalized thinking. Compartmentalized thinking is when we say that our work life is totally distinct from our home life which is totally distinct from our spiritual lives, and so on. What Paul is saying here in Colossians 3:22-4:1 is that, for the Christians, every part of our lives is integrated under the banner of the Kingdom. Your time at school is Kingdom activity. Your time at work is Kingdom activity. Your retirement and volunteering is Kingdom activity. Work and school and serving organizations are not items that we check off the list, just to get them done. We are not to be people who are working for the weekend or for vacation. We are God’s Kingdom people everywhere we go, no matter what we do, and we seek, maybe using the 4 Es as our guide to live out our faith at all times. Where is your heart? Focused on living as unto the Lord?

You might think, “But how? My work is mind-numbing. I am not doing what I want to do with my life.” Or you might think, “Really? This applies even to school in math class, which I hate? I’m forced to take these classes that are teaching me stuff I will never use. It is a waste of my time!”

I am currently working (slowly…) on getting my doctorate. You know what someone told me about my dissertation? Just crank it out. Get it done. Probably 5 people will ever read it. You just need to gut it out and get the degree. There is truth to that statement, because that is the reality for many students. But it is also frustrating to think about. I just paid the tuition and dedicated three years of my life, stressed myself out basically the whole time…just to get it done?

Of course, it is true that I learned a lot along the way, and the degree is like a key that will unlock doors of opportunity that I did not have before. That’s no small thing. But there is also a way to look at being a worker, an employee, a volunteer from God’s perspective. Every class I took while studying for my degree, every book I read, every paper I wrote, including the dissertation, should be seen as an act of worship. “Work as unto the Lord.”

I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to do the biblical study and theological thinking necessary to see your work, your academic career, your volunteering from God’s eyes. That includes the work you do right now that you can’t stand, or the school work that seems pointless. What will it look like to do that work as unto the Lord? How can my work be done in a way that brings joy our God’s heart as He sees me engage with it?

I would recommend that you read Amy Sherman’s book Kingdom Calling as a next step for how to view your work, your studies and your retirement as Kingdom work.

4 Faulty Viewpoints About Work – Colossians 3:22-4:1, Part 3

Each follower of Jesus, no matter their station in life, is called to work as unto the Lord. Working unto the Lord means that we will avoid a faulty view of work. There are at least four faulty views to avoid.

The first faulty viewpoint is when people think “working as unto the Lord” is just for people in Christian ministry. Avoid the trap of thinking that professional ministry work or church work is somehow more important than other work. It is not. All of our work matters, and that is what Paul is trying to teach us in Colossian 3:22-4:1. Even a slave could work as unto the Lord. Even if you feel satisfied at work less than 80% of the time (see previous post), your work matters, and you can do it unto the Lord. In fact, your work, though it might seem to have no relationship whatsoever to the Kingdom of God, is actually Kingdom work. How so? Check back to the next post as we’ll look into this further.

The second faulty viewpoint is when some pastors or church leaders make it seem like the only important thing in God’s eyes is for you to show up at church and serve on church committees and ministries. While we might not say these words, we church leaders can insinuate that we want you to, “Just get work out of the way so you can get to what is really important…church!” Is it more important?

No doubt active, consistent, sacrificial participation in the relationships of a church family is important, and that’s not me talking. That’s clear in Scripture. But what Paul reminds us here in Colossians 3:22-4:1 is that work is important too. Think about the section of verses from last week and this week: Family and work. The two places most people spend most of their time. How much time do you spend at work or at school each week? You probably spend 40-50 hours each week at work or school. How you use that time is just as important to God as the time you spend in church. In fact, given that you spend so much more time at work than you do in church, I think there is a strong case to be made for viewing how you use that time at work is even more important. God cares about your heart attitude and not just time spent in what would be called by society, “ministry.”

A third faulty viewpoint, Paul refers to in verse 22, when he cautions slaves about only working hard when their master is looking. On a basic level this is something we all understand. The boss walks into the room and all of sudden there is a flurry of activity as the workers, who previously were having a conversation unrelated to work, stop their conversation and get back to work. Clearly, no matter our station in life, we should be people who work hard.

Paul is not, however, saying that we need to be workaholics. We might call that Faulty Viewpoint 3.1. This can be difficult in our contemporary society because more and more people work from home, or work has access to us at all times because of our smart phones. People often say to me that being a pastor must involve the pressure of being on-call in the middle of the night. That’s simply not been my reality. Probably less than five times in 19 years of pastoral ministry have I been called out in the middle of the night. What is my reality, though, is that my phone connects me to the church family all the time. Text messages, phone calls, emails, social media. There is a very real sense in which I’m on call a lot more than pastors were in the old days. Those boundaries and lines get fuzzy. Many of you know this reality in your jobs too. Where do you draw the line? It is hard to know. We need to learn to disconnect, to rest, to take a sabbath. What I see Paul discussing here is the reality of laziness, of procrastination, of irresponsibility. We should be people who are known for being on time, being diligent, reliable, hard workers.

It seems to me, though, that there is a shadow side to hard work, and it might be what is at the heart of workaholism. Let me explain with an illustration from the world of education. Educational theorists and researchers have noted that adult education is vastly different from child education, precisely because adults choose when they want to learn and what they want to learn. Therefore adults tend to be very motivated. A student who barely made it through high school or college may find years later that they get straight As in grad school. This could be due to people who seek to “work as unto the Lord,” and they find their motivation benefited greatly by years of perspective through which they have matured. This could also be due to the fact that adults tend to be the ones paying their tuition bills. But the shadow side is the reality that work and education can give us a kind of high, especially when it results in power, promotions, adulation, achievements, and increasing paychecks. What we have to be careful about is that we don’t equate perfectionism with “working as unto the Lord.” We can achieve high marks and lots of accomplishment, not because we’re worshiping the Lord, but because we are incredibly egotistical or narcissistic, wanting to look good and, in fact, wanting people to praise and worship us. That is not what working as unto the Lord is. Do you see it, again? It is a heart issue: someone’s hard work on the outside does not necessarily equal someone working as unto the Lord.

The final faulty viewpoint Paul gives us about work is in Colossians 4:1, and this is for the bosses. Treat your workers well, because you have a boss too…Jesus. Similarly, James writes in James 5:4, “The wages you have failed to pay the workmen who mow your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.” We Christians should be leading the way in paying our workers. We should be known the world around as paying above-average wages, in giving benefits, in graciously and lovingly leading our employees. Churches, especially, should be amazing employers. I was so proud of Faith Church’s Leadership Team last year. When the pandemic hit and our part-time staff were out of work for months, the Leadership team paid them their full amount the entire time! If you have a leadership role of any kind in your school, in your workplace, in your volunteer group, how will you clearly work as unto the Lord in how you treat the people you are responsible for?